Gupshup, a conversational messaging platform, has raised $60 million. The majority of the funding came from Globespan Capital Partners (a venture capital firm) and the remainder was provided by EvolutionX Debt Capital.
The new capital will be used to expand Gupshup’s artificial intelligence-driven messaging platform, and accelerate go-to market execution across high growth regions, including India and the Middle East.
The San Francisco-headquartered company is also exploring a shift in domicile to India ahead of a potential public listing in the country, likely within the next 12-24 months.
“Any company that has been around a long time and has scale, and is profitable is a good candidate for going out there and getting listed.” We’re speaking to advisors and looking into things (to move domicile and list), ” Beerud Sheth told ET.
The funding comes at a time when Gupshup is seeing an increase in enterprise adoption of conversational AI across customer support, sales, and commerce as part of a global push toward AI automation.
“AI and large-language models have taken off in big ways, and now businesses are trying to build AI Agents.” We are well-positioned to enable this because our platform is built over messaging and agents engage with users through these channels,” Sheth said. “It is a natural upsell for everything we have been offering.”
Gupshup didn’t disclose the valuation of the round after the money was raised. Fidelity Investments’ stake in Gupshup had been halved to $697m by 2023. Fidelity Investments first invested in the company when it was valued at $1.4billion.
Gupshup will raise $240 million as follow-on funding in July 2021. Fidelity Research and Management Company is a participant. The round was secondary and aimed to provide exits for employees and early investors. Tiger Global, Think Investments Malabar Investments, Harbor Spring Capital and Harbor Spring Capital were also backers of the round. The funding came after a $100 million investment from Tiger Global, valued at $1.4 billion in April 2021.
Gupshup was founded in 2004 as a messaging API and bot infrastructure provider. In recent years, the company has focused on AI-powered solutions for customer engagement.
The company automates complex customer interactions, while maintaining human-like conversations. It claims to handle over 120 billion messages per year for more than 50,000 companies in 130 countries.
Gupshup offers tools for marketing and sales, as well as customer support, across platforms like WhatsApp, voice, mobile applications and websites.
India is Gupshup’s largest market, with about 60% of revenue coming from the country. The remaining 40% comes from other countries.
“Gupshup is transforming the vision of conversational AI to a reality at enterprise scale. Gupshup’s deep AI expertise, robust technology and relentless execution are redefining the way businesses engage their customers, said Andy Goldfarb. He is cofounder and managing director of Globespan Capital Partners. “From India to UAE and Saudi Arabia, Gupshup’s conversation cloud and AI agent are transforming employee and customer interactions.”
Gupshup customers are mainly large enterprises. They come from ecommerce and retail, payments, fintechs, media, travel, automobiles, and banking. Sheth says that the rest of Gupshup’s customers are small and medium-sized businesses.
Gupshup announced in April that it had laid off 300 employees in the past two year as part of its efforts to streamline operations and concentrate on profitable growth following a period rapid expansion. After a series acquisitions and lateral hirings, the company’s headcount reached 1,500 in 2021. Sheth says that the company currently employs about 1,000 people.
“Every business strives to achieve greater scale without increasing costs. It’s great if you can increase your revenue per employee and improve efficiency. We can make our employees more productive in this AI era by automating and leveraging AI,” Sheth said.
Gupshup has acquired several startups in the conversational AI space, including AskSid and Active.ai, after receiving a $100 million funding round by Tiger Global.
Gupshup raised a total $200 million in primary capital, and another $250 million through secondary transactions.
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